Smithy Fen traveller held in US over alleged $50k sale of rhino horns

A Smithy Fen traveller has been detained in New York accused of illegally dealing in black rhinoceros horns.

Michael Slattery, who uses an address at Orchard Drive on the site in Cottenham, is alleged to have used falsified documents to sell four horns to a dealer for $50,000 – about £31,300.

The 25-year-old was arrested as he boarded a flight to London at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport last month, and then remanded in custody following an appearance at a court in Brooklyn.

The state attorney’s office for the eastern district of New York alleged Slattery travelled to Houston, Texas, in 2010, to buy two horns at a taxidermy auction house.”